Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

The McCain-Bush plan for Iraq

Will Senator John McCain's hopes for the presidency be scuppered by his proposal for more troops in Iraq? Some of his supporters are getting anxious that the new Iraq strategy President Bush will announce next month will become known as "McCain-Bush".

Could McCain's Iraq plan sink his presidential hopes?

The obvious danger for McCain is that he then becomes closely associated with an unpopular president's most unpopular policy. McCain-Bush could be the anchor that drags the ex-Navy man down. If the "surge" plan is unsuccessful – and let's face it, nothing has a great chance of success at this juncture – then McCain's poll ratings could sink to the sea bottom.

It now seems an odds on certainty that Bush will go for a surge. This was discussed with his national security team in their council of war at the Crawford ranch today. At the same time, John Edwards whoÂ will run for president,Â was slamming the surge proposal and linking it to McCain – no doubt this will be a common Democratic line of attack in 2007.

The question is, how many extra troops there will be and will they be part of a coherent surge plan like the "long and large" one outlined by General Jack Keane and Fred Kagan and in a Washington Post oped yesterday? I reported on the positive reception at the White House to the Keane-Kagan plan two weeks ago.

It seems to me that this is a simple but clever plan that is worth a try – but it has to involve a substantial number of troops (30,000+) and it has to last longer than the two or three months that would render it little more than a political gesture. Such a plan is very much in line with what McCain has been pushing for months, if not years. In fact, let's call it McCain-Bush.

But even if it is the correct plan, how can McCain be sure the Bush administration would implement McCain-Bush effectively? Given the record of incompetence in Iraq thus far, would you want to stake your political future on the Bushies getting it right this time? As Bob NovakÂ reports, there is already evidence that McCain's support for extra troops is a drag on his candidacy.

This could be good news for Rudy Giuliani, though the former New York mayor is himself as hawkish as they come. Readers of this blog will know that I think Guiliani should not be dismissed as a 2008 prospect.

I hear all the reasons why Republicans might not nominate a social liberal but McCain is not beloved by the Right and Mitt Romney's pro-choice, pro-gay rights past will not help him. As Michael Barone notes, Giuliani leads McCain among likely Republican primary voters in most polls.

Both McCain and Giuliani have the advantage of a certain authenticity – to use that hackneyed word from the 2000 primaries. In McCain's case, it is hugely to his credit that he is proposing a troop surge even though he knows it might be a political liability to him.

He also has a son Jimmy McCain who is undergoing US Marine Corps basic training and is likely to be sent to Anbar province as an infantryman if his senator dad has his way. No one could accuse McCain of self-interested calculation.

Ultimately, I believe that voters reward politicians who do what they think is right – even if they disagree with them. I hope against hope that a McCain-Bush, Keane-Kagan – call it what you will – plan will succeed in Iraq and the violence will subside. But the political reality is that if the new White House plan really does come to be seen as McCain-Bush it could spell deep trouble for the former Vietnam PoW's White House chances.